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When I arrived at the light house at 6AM the boys were already hard at work light painting the lighthouse in the pre dawn darkness. At this stage the sky conditions were looking a little grim with barely any clouds in the sky and just some heavy looking cloud on the horizon. Just before the sun came up however some very thin wispy clouds moved in from the city to the west and the sky filled with bright pink set against a deep blue sky - we were saved...

C&C welcomed...

This morning was also a chance to try out my new Heliopan 105mm SH-PMC Slim Circular Polariser and Lee 105mm Front Polariser Ring (which had finally come back into stock after many months of waiting - it was a wallet burning AUD$320 delivered from TeamWork in the UK, but was significantly cheaper than most other places in the US, Aus and UK)

Just pre dawn...



and then the pink skies hit



the sun peeks over the horizon



and then was struggling for compositions - I could see these lovely long shadows raking across the ground and tried incorporating them from the seaward side but appeared to be failing. It wasn't until I headed further along the coast well away from the lighthouse and looked back that I found this nice possie with the low shadows across the landscape, the warm morning light and the path meandering away into the distance that I could take my own favourite shot of this session - and here's a self portrait with the composition...



Lastly a monochrome conversion of a very long exposure (170 seconds) using the whole kitchen sink - B+W 10 Stop ND + Lee 0.9 (3 Stop) Hard Grad ND + Heliopan CPL



One thing I've noticed with the new CPL is that it appears to be "stronger" than my existing B+W 77mm CPL - it can make the skies go really black compared to when I use the B+W (which I normally just dial near max when I use it) - I'll have to get used to this (especially with the ultra wide).

As we had time before our 10AM birthday celebration, Gerry directed us off to nearby Diamond Bay Reserve to see if there was anything worth shooting - will see how they turn out after processing the images...

Thanks to Gerry for organising the meet

Great stuff mate....sounds like that Heliopan has found a happy owner

So on balance your verdict so far on the Heliopan?

p.s. I prefer the pink sky composition overall.

I like the second best.

Mj wrote:So on balance your verdict so far on the Heliopan?

p.s. I prefer the pink sky composition overall.

So I've had a sudden impulse to jump at the Heliopan CPL while it was on special @ teamworks ... fingers crossed it was a good decision... any observations on your experience so far Rodney?

I have to say the B&w does it for me, I think the light works really well in mono.

Mj wrote:

Mj wrote:So on balance your verdict so far on the Heliopan? p.s. I prefer the pink sky composition overall.

So I've had a sudden impulse to jump at the Heliopan CPL while it was on special @ teamworks ... fingers crossed it was a good decision... any observations on your experience so far Rodney?

I'm more than happy with it and it's definitely MUCH easier to use than mounting the 77mm CPL on the lens and then the Lee holder after that (which at least means I'll actually be inclined to use it more often when using the Lee gear). I also think it's polarising effects are able to be stronger than when I use the B+W one (I don't know if thats just because of the order of filters (i.e. CPL on front then grads or ND's behind vs CPL at back and others in front) or just this filter itself - either way I like it I've only used it for two shoots so far tho so...

Even though it is the slimmest CPL it still vignettes for me (at 12mm and maybe a touch at 13mm) - however I have a feeling it's the holder itself which is vignetting (because it used to happen before I added the CPL ring on the front) and I'm still using two slots on my holder with the CPL in front of that).

Remorhaz wrote:One thing I've noticed with the new CPL is that it appears to be "stronger" than my existing B+W 77mm CPL - it can make the skies go really black compared to when I use the B+W (which I normally just dial near max when I use it) - I'll have to get used to this (especially with the ultra wide).

thats interesting, i think further testing is required on that one, the scene from where you selfie was taken resulted in some pretty blue/dark sky even without the polariser.

With the first two images, i reckon you got the compo around teh wrong way here, i did exactly the same thing, placed the lighthouse on the right side of the frame and used the path to lead - however there is one flaw in all that, the building is 'facing' straight outta the frame instead of into it.

However, both images are perfectly suited to cropping to a vertical pano, remove all that space on the left, this is two fold on the second, the polariser has created, for me anyway, a yucky mix of blues (i tried to dial mine down in post) hence teh pano crop will even all that nice blue out.

The third is a good idea and the sun burst is a great anchor point, the distortion is a bit of a show stopper for me, i think possibly workign the white on the house may actually improve this particular scene.

I like the selfie shot, a prime example of where a partially polarised sky works very well. I would have rather have seen a different model maybe some lycra action

The BW bigstopper shot is a money maker, its interestign to see how placing the path differently within teh frame can make all the difference to a shot.

cheers for the company on the morning.

Remorhaz wrote:I'm more than happy with it ...

Good to hear as I now have one winging it's way here... quite impressed by the service as they already double checked which one I wanted (Slim vs Normal) and on confirmation sent notice that it's on its way.
All that will now be required is a suitable test composition that preferably doesn't require a 3am start I might look for a local sunset for starters just to get my act together before I find myself dangling over some cliff face at 5am in the morning with some questionable characters. The Gap has something of a reputation